• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

8Pack reviews the ASUS Matrix 780Ti on stock to LN2 cooling with 3D mark 11 world record as a final

OcUK Staff
Joined
20 Feb 2012
Posts
10,163
Location
John Smiths Stadium
As those who read my review on the new ASUS Matrix R290X which I made public on these forums last week will know I am a great fan of the Matrix series of cards by ASUS. They have often been seen as class leaders by high end gamers and overclockers alike. My First Global WR was with a Nvidia based ASUS Matrix Card so I was obviously very keen to see what a Modern Nvidia Matrix 780 Ti GPU could do.

For the gamer this GPU offers high factory boost clocks, great cooling and excellent aesthetics. The overclocker gets a strong PWM, cherry picked components and again the up-rated DC2 style cooler. This cooler is two slot design so 4 way is possible with this card on its stock cooler.

For me Matrix have also always offered some extra innovation to the pack when it comes to supporting xtreme overclocking with very little modification. This card continues in that tradition with even more features that can assist you. Short a jumper on the back of the card and switch to LN2 bios and you have literally limitless Voltage control options from software to totally max out the card. Not just the standard GPU, MEM and PLL control but control of the individual rails also. LLC. PWM frequency the list is endless.

Short a second jumper on the card opens up an even more interesting feature the memory heater!! Basically what this does under LN2 cooling is warm the memory on the card to prevent cold bug. Later in this review you will see some truly outstanding LN2 cooled results where I use this feature to the max!!!

So lets take a look at the card with some pics.









Team Matrix ;)!!



As usual when testing a GPU I hooked up a Digital Volt meter to the Ti to check power delivery and full hot wire mods for ROG panel connectivity. This Ti was rock solid on all rails throughout testing on both LN2 and Air and changes on GPU Tweak where made instantaneously at hardware level. This worked well all the way up to 1.58V which I used for LN2 testing. I did encounter OCP protection on the Card at over 1.6V on LN2 cooling and have brought this to ASUS's attention not that this "limitation" hampered me too much!! but I think with 1.65v this card will go even higher.

All air testing was done on Normal Bios and thus top voltage available was 1.21v Core through GPU tweak and 1.65V memory.

The Test Rig!!
ASUS RIVE BE
4930K
Corsair Dominator plats
ASUS Nvidia 780Ti Matrix
Win 7 64Bit
Nvidia 334.89
Antec 1200w HCP

Lets see how the card fared when ragged to the max through the Packs stock cooler bench attack!!

11


Fire Strike


Fire Strike Xtreme


Heaven Valley


As you can see the Ti managed 1305 Core 1925/1950 memory through all benches rock stable. It scaled very well with volts too. So every time the GPU fell over at a certain clock adding a touch more core all the way up to 1.21v got it stable again.

The Air cooler on the Ti Matrix was more than up to the job of keeping it cool with peak load temps while benching in the late 60's for the most period. A peak of 71 C was seen on one run only. This cooler is not only effective, its quiet and looks great too.

In summary the air over clocking results are 20mhz on the core better than the ASUS DC2 I reviewed previously. The memory on the DC2 had another 100mhz in it though meaning the overall bench mark scores are very, very close. The DC2 was my favourite Ti, now I have to say its a tie between these two great ASUS GPU. The Matrix looks better and has more features which are easier to access but at cost.

When I finished air testing this GPU yesterday afternoon I though I would do a very short test on LN2 just to get a feel for what it was capable of and then test further today if it showed great promise.

Yesterdays system was my standard GPU LN2 testing system that I pushed up as the GPU showed real promise!
4770K 6.3ghz GT's 6,2ghz CPU and Physics
ASUS MVIE
GSKILL 2666 C10
ASUS Matrix 780Ti
Antec 1200 and EVGA 1500w PSU's

Here is the Fire Strike result I achieved after an hour or so LN2 testing.


GPU at 1875/1875!!!

After the above first tests I had no doubt I would try again with this card today on my X79 rig!! and push it even harder if I could. With records as the primary aim.

4930K 6270 GT's, 6205 Physics
ASUS RIVE BE
Corsair 2666 C9-12-12-20 1T
ASUS Matrix 780Ti
Antec 1200 and EVGA 1500w PSU's

Here is the 3D mark 11 result.


A new world record with the GPU at 1925/1850 Yeah man!!! This was at 1.58V with GPU at load temps of around -125C.

Here is the link for the world record
http://hwbot.org/submission/2528380_8_pack_3dmark11___performance_geforce_gtx_780_ti_24155_marks

and some frosty pics of the rig:





I will be attempting some more records in the coming days and weeks with this card. Maybe even stream some of these sessions too.

To summaries 1925mhz GPU do I need to say anymore!!!
 
Wow that is unreal ! Them frosty pics look class , I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to overclocking and water cooling, but is that liquid nitrogen cooling ? And is it hard / expensive to do ? I imagine it is !
 
Wow that is unreal ! Them frosty pics look class , I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to overclocking and water cooling, but is that liquid nitrogen cooling ? And is it hard / expensive to do ? I imagine it is !

Its LN2 yes. It is quite expensive at around 75p per litre+ to buy.

Its a skill on its own LN2 overclocking. You need to figure out much more about components when clocking in this way to get the best results. You have exact control of temps and need to use this to your advantage.

Most guys think with LN2 you just pour to the lowest possible temps but almost no components like this and results are terrible or the system simply freezes, with components cold bugging.

The GPU in this case liked -125 loaded. Other Ti I have like -135 or even -145 any lower they all cold bug. The CPU in this bench cant go lower than -180 but at -177 will not run at such high frequency.

So many variables with LN2 clocking to take into account as well as equipment prep to deal with condensation and moisture.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom